Melissa “Missy” Hasley, a 31-year-old mother of three children, was reported missing to the Des Moines Police Department on Friday, Oct. 18, 2002.

Hasley was last seen alive between 11:45 p.m. and 1:45 a.m. in October 2002 at a party at an apartment complex in the vicinity of the 1700 block of Grand Avenue. Earlier that evening, Hasley had attended a party at Oak Ridge Apartments and then later went to the Grand Avenue party.

Polk County in Iowa

Des Moines in Polk County

A blind woman lived at the Grand Avenue apartment. Witnesses reported hearing Hasley in the bathroom with two other people, and later saw her sitting on the fire escape. The witnesses said when they heard the fire door go off, they believed Hasley left the building through an alley door on the building’s north side.

No one has seen Hasley since the night of the parties.

Hasley was involved with drugs and prostitution prior to her disappearance, but her loved ones have stated she would not have abandoned her three children.

She is described as a 5-foot-5 white female weighing 128 pounds. She has blonde hair and hazel eyes.

Hasley does not have permanent teeth; at the time of her disappearance, all her baby teeth were still present. She has a one-inch scar on her left thigh, an appendectomy scar, pierced ears, and the left side of her nose is pierced.

She was last seen wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans and a beige jacket.

Hasley previously lived in Orlando, Florida, and Adel, Iowa.

Sisters Share Lifestyles, Similar Fates

Melissa Hasley’s unsolved disappearance — and suspected murder — wouldn’t be the last tragedy her mother, Sandra Moreland, would endure.

The first weekend in August 2006, Moreland’s oldest daughter, Georgina Kimble, 37, was stabbed to death in a basement apartment at Des Moines’ Capitol Heights Apartments. Early Sunday morning on August 6, a convicted sex offender, Keith Parker, 48, walked into the Polk County Jail and told employees he’d killed someone at his apartment, located at 1414 E. Walnut Street. He was subsequently charged with first-degree murder.

Kimble, like her youngest sister, had also been involved in drugs and prostitution, but there was something else about her murder that unsettled family; she had been investigating — on her own — what happened to her sister Melissa.

Melissa Hasley

“She never found out. We’ve never found out,” Moreland told Des Moines Register reporter Tom Alex in an interview for an article published August 8, 2006.

Kimble, like Hasley, left behind three children.

“Really, all we know is what we’ve seen on TV,” Moreland told the Register.

Moreland said she at least could have some closure with Georgina’s death because she knew where she was. “I wish I could say the same for Missy,” she said.

At the time of Kimble’s murder, Moreland’s middle daughter, 36-year-old Lois Hasley, sat in the Marshall County Jail — charged with prostitution.

“The whole thing is just so incredibly sad,” Moreland’s sister, Cathy Leader, said of the three girls’ fate.

Leader said the family had warned Georgina that she would end up like her younger sister, and that though Kimble had acknowledged she was aware of that fact, she apparently had continued with the dangerous lifestyle.

Family members didn’t know what Kimble had been doing at Parker’s apartment that weekend, and police didn’t make public any theories about a motive for the stabbing.

Keith Parker — who was convicted of sex crimes in 1982 and 1988 — is listed on Iowa’s Sex Offender Registry.

A DNA sample for Melissa Hasley has been submitted and tests are complete.

Information Needed

If you have any information concerning Melissa Hasley’s unsolved disappearance, please contact the Des Moines Police Department at (515) 283-4811.

Thank you, Meaghan, for understanding why it’s important to mention what can often be some uncomfortable facts about a victim’s life. There are many cases here on ICC where the victims were involved in prostitution and/or drugs, and the persons with whom the victim associated often play a key role in whether or not the case gets solved. We’re not being judgmental or disrespectful or doing any “victim blaming” here; it’s never pleasant for us to include those details, but it’s necessary for one to understand victims’ lifestyles in order to look for answers in the right places or circles.

Melissa’s own mother spoke openly with the Des Moines Register about her daughters’ similar choices and fates — not to disrespect them but with hopes of reaching somebody out there who might know something and finally be willing to come forward. My heart goes out to Melissa’s mom and family for the numerous tragedies they’ve endured.

I totally agree. On the Charley Project I tell EVERYTHING I can about a person and their life, the good and the bad, because you never know what detail can stick in people’s head and lead to something down the line.

Sometimes families get offended with me and I understand that. What is very annoying, though, is when they lie to me. One woman wrote me saying her aunt was not a prostitute or a drug user and if I didn’t take those libellous statements down at once, she was going to sue me. (I get that a lot. Never been sued. Have had people write nasty blogs about me online though.) I sighed and emailed back a copy of the missing woman’s criminal record with its multiple arrests for soliciting and possession. Never heard from that person again.

I did a really big Charley Project update today, most of it info from your site — this is a really awesome website you have. Check out http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/g/griebel_kevin.html I don’t know why he’s listed as a missing person when he’s got very serious drug charges pending and disappeared right after his indictment. His co-conspirator in that case got a nine-year prison term.

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